The way that she goes
by LovelyLivy
Summary: and the way he won't follow. Jibbs. Strong T.


**Eh. This had originally been a snippet. Then, I heard this song and I remembered the snippet, and even though I'm exhausted I came home and wrote for a good twenty to thirty minutes. The product? This little devil. Ha. Just kidding. Anyway, not beta'd. So. Yeah. See y'all this summer? Writing time will be glorious. :) -Alivia**

* * *

_Though the truth may vary_  
_this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore_. - Monsters & Men

* * *

"I wish I had never left," she mumbles into his chest on a night when the cloak of darkness is so thick that maybe, if they squint, they can pretend what they're doing isn't senseless and _wrong. _

He doesn't say anything, and she runs her lithe hand over the smattering of silver hair on his chest. With every rise of his ribcage, she falls further into the haze of peace, and quiet.

Her feet still hurt her from earlier that day, traipsing up and down the hallways of NCIS in heels too high. There's a bruise, a hickey, forming on her neck. He tugs his fingers through her silky reddish locks, content to stay here for another hour, at least.

"In Paris," she explains, although it's more to keep the steady than anything else. She knows he isn't up for talking. She's almost surprised when he does give her a response, albeit short, and baring the edge of bitterness only associated with mentions of Europe and letters and coats.

"Wishing doesn't change anything," is all he says. He sounds tired, and old. Like telling a child they can't have something so many times, and having them still questioning.

She wishes with all she has, as hard as she can, that it didn't have to be like this.

But when the sun wakes her as it peers, blinding, through the curtains, and she reaches out- he isn't there. The sheets are barren and cold.

She hadn't expected anything different. Still, the emptiness leaves her numb, while the gnawing in her heart is keen. It takes her a long while to get dressed for work, and her fingers slip at the buttons of oxford. The weaknesses are progressing.

Time is taking her dignity and running away from her.

* * *

"Director Shepard, here are the reports from the Peters case."

Jenny looks up from her computer, moving to adjust the glasses perched of her nose.

"Ziva?"

She hadn't been expecting her; it was usually Gibbs. The case reports weren't late, either.

Her emerald eyes squint minutely. The Israeli doesn't move forward, and gives the redheaded a guarded look. She inclines her head at her superior.

"Gibbs is out," Ziva says, and Jenny raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

"Out?"

It seems Ziva is unsure, for a mere moment, and suddenly will not meet her eyes. Jenny licks her lips, sitting back in her seat, knowing, and not wanting to.

"He is with our liason, Ms. Hart. Doing some case work," Ziva says, finally. The younger woman looks uncomfortable, and Jenny breathes out. Oxygen is scarce. There is a crease between her eyebrows that wasn't there a few minutes ago. Lines near her mouth that weren't there a few years ago.

"Thank you, Ziva."

The hollow feeling rests upon her again, but she is the picture of indifference masking stress. She remains absolute, and she will not fall until the last verse.

* * *

Jenny does something she hardly ever does when she finally gets aching feet free of the suffocating heels that night; she watches television. The show isn't entertaining, and her thoughts are sharp and unrelenting.

She needs a distraction. Quickly.

It's a buzzing alertness that scratches at her skin, fills her mouth with a bitter aftertaste. She keeps imagining him with her. What they might be doing. Jethro has the habit of making nothing seem like the best thing in the world.

Her quiet sigh resounds throughout the stale air of her townhouse.

The couch's leather melds to her bare thigh, sticking there, leaving red indentations in the skin. She is wearing but a thin shirt and a pair of ratted underwear.

Drifting comfort.

She can't remember when she made the conscious decision to move her hand, and to entirely turn her attention to other places. To invert everything.

To be selfish.

Or maybe she never decided. Maybe it just happened- and maybe she needed it. Like oxygen.

Lingering, her fingers creep beneath the seam of the cotton material. Trailing through the wiry hair, and settling in her heat. She flicks her fingers, and groans lowly.

It takes her around seven minutes. Maybe more.

(Definitely more time than it would ever take with him involved.)

(This infuriated her more than she'd like to admit.)

Eventually, though, something close to the sensation of a flame flickering ignited low in her belly.

She arches up against the leather, and bites her tongue accidentally, drawing blood.

She promises herself (like those mean much these days) that it wasn't his name she was mouthing wordlessly into the couch pillows.

* * *

Jethro starts ignoring her at work. It seems silly to her, but she thinks he might even be staying out of trouble for that very reason.

Fine, she thinks. It's easier for her.

But it's not.

Because his eyes have dulled from the sharp crystal they once were, and hardly ever meet her own. The yearning is gone (for him, at least).

Not for her, though.

The couch starts to wear with the days.

Her eyes grow heavier. She can't grasp reality. Can't find him in the murky depths of pain, of loss, of Paris.

Because now is not Paris.

She starts thinking about serious matters, and calls her lawyer.

Then, she writes a letter.

The words _Dear, Jethro _have never felt so senseless. They've never felt so _wrong._

* * *

The sky reminds her of Paris, and she can't fathom why. Stars litter the frigidly cold space, and the dark is so blunt she can hardly see her fingers that shake. The trees tops are without leaves, and she is terribly alone (wherever she is).

Jenny stumbles along the moist Earth, reaching for tree trunks as guides, balances. And after sometime, after her bare feet have grown raw, there is a sweet opening through the thought-endless abyss.

It is a wide clearing, and the soft grass is hope between her toes. Her emerald gaze squints, attempting to make out the shape of something a few feet away. Ice nips at her veins. Someone.

She assumes it's Jethro (because dreams are fickle, aren't they) and she wants to laugh at herself when she sees the long hair.

The hair is strung wet with blood. In fact, as she grows closer to the body (now obviously dead), she realizes that dark flecks of the liquid stand stark against the pale skin. Naked, and alone.

What a horrible death this woman must have endured.

Jenny recalls having dreams like this when she first started working for NCIS; nowadays it's only her father's blood splattered upon walls, only Jethro's dead eyes, only her ex-but-not-lover's tongue in her mouth.

Nowadays, her nightmares are common and predictable.

It isn't until she reaches down to turn the dead woman over that she sees the scar, a thin white line down the right shoulder blade. A fleck on the skin that is as frigid as the night air.

It is her scar that she sees, and it is her that is dead in this ice bitten meadow.

Her own blood runs between her bare toes.

It feels like words are crawling up her throat.

And although she had barely moved in the milliseconds, suddenly the body has turned, and the face, her face, is in plain view for the unforgiving night to swallow whole.

She wakes in a cold sweat, and her hands are still shaking.

Jenny gags once, twice, and makes it to the bathroom before she can do anything too damaging.

She has fourteen days of life left. (Or maybe she's been dead for months.) The diagnosis looms in her mind.

After she's washed her mouth, and rubbed her eyes swollen, she goes back to bed (the one that's cold and empty).

Jethro hadn't come over that night. It's not as if they live together.

It's not like they're strangers either.

Or maybe they are.

Maybe, nowadays, they're like ships passing in the night, and the time has finally come when the wind shifts and her ship is caught in the eye of a hurricane. He will go on, unawares.

Jenny doesn't sleep restfully again until she'll never wake.


End file.
